Whether you’re building a successful team, or developing a deeper understanding of client needs, empathetic listening is key. Relationship building is all about client communication. How well you listen your your client’s needs with an empathetic ear can determine your success.
As a service professional, your interpersonal communication skills are vital for relationship and business building. Without the ability to effectively get your points across in a way that makes others receptive to your ideas, you’re going to struggle in your business.
How Effective Communication Benefits Your Beauty Business
Excellent communication skills will benefit all areas of your business, including marketing, sales, team management, and client retention!
If you talk (or write) about your services in a way that makes your target market tick, you can attract more potential clients.
When you build rapport and make connections with potential clients during a conversation, you’re more likely to earn their business or make a sale.
Listening to your clients during treatments makes them feel pampered and heard. You’ll gain loyalty of those who will not only buy your products for home-care and return for future treatments, but also refer others to your business.
When you’re clear about your client policies, you can reduce costly situations such as no-shows, late running clients, or refund requests.
Share your vision and business values with your team to them inspired and empowered to serve clients in a way that makes your brand stand out.
Offer an extensive, onboarding process for new employees. Continue to train and mentor new team members in a way that keeps them engaged, interested, and motivated. This level of tight communication in the beginning will help you build a supportive and productive team.
When you set an example for your team and demonstrate stellar communication skills, they’ll follow your lead and do the same when they interact with clients and other team members. You are distilling a positive, compassionate culture.
Better communication with your team leads to less turnover, which can be very costly to a business. Good communication helps you hire the right people and train them appropriately.
Effective communication is the key to business success. However, there’s no one-size-fits-all method. However, practicing empathetic listening will put you ahead of the game.
Cultivate Awareness In Your Communication
In order to improve your communication skills, you need to first build awareness on how you communicate with others. In order to cultivate awareness, practice being in the moment.
We need to be truly listening, which is hard to do these days!
Cultivating awareness brings new levels of understanding to your communication skills. Deeper understanding allows you to acknowledge and respond accordingly – which is vital to human needs.
People like to be heard and understood. Your clients and team members will appreciate you and feel more fulfilled in the workplace.
Practice Empathetic Listening
When we’re having a conversation, it’s easy to get absorbed into thinking what we’re going to say next or what we might be cooking for dinner later. When we do that, we’re not paying attention to what the other person is actually communicating.
Empathetic listening is the most important skill in interpersonal communication. It’s the key to gaining deep understanding of what another person is really sharing so you can respond with compassion.
When you’re present in a conversation and listen intently, you make the other party feel heard. People also become less defensive and more cooperative when they feel acknowledged.
Empathetic listening is a key skill for effective sales conversations. When you listen to a potential client talk about problems and challenges, respond with genuine care and concern. The conversation will not be icky or feel salesy, at all. Your client will feel comfortable and be willing to share even more!
In addition, when you practice empathetic listening with your team members, you’re helping them cultivate awareness about their own communication style. This is a win win for everyone involved.
You see, when a person feels heard, they become more open to their own experience. They will feel valued, respected, and understood. They’ll be able to tune into her own reactions and become more emotionally mature.
For example, when you listen empathetically to a team member, you can defuse challenging situations and resolve issues in a mature and productive way but you’re also behaving as a leader who builds a team up by making them feel valued and respected.
You cannot fake empathetic listening.
People can tell if you aren’t present or if you don’t really care. You need to be genuinely interested in the wellbeing of your clients and team members in order to be effective in your communications.
Running a successful spa business requires outstanding business, marketing, and leadership skills. You’re covered when you join the Esthetician Inner Circle, in which you’ll learn my tried-and-true strategies to get more clients and grow your business.